CHELATCHIE — “There’s an elk!” Eric Holman called out and stopped his pickup truck on the forest road. Holman peered into the forest and spotted seven more elk through the trees.
“I don’t see any that are limping,” said Holman, a wildlife biologist for the Department of Fish and Wildlife. “These were nice and close.”
He and Brooke George, another department biologist, recorded the location of the sighting and what they could see about the elks’ condition.
It was one more piece of data in the agency’s ongoing survey of hoof disease in Southwest Washington elk.
Another research effort concerning hoof disease started in February, when state staff working from helicopters tranquilized 78 cow elk with darts.
About three-fourths of the elk appeared to have hoof disease in the project area: the Winston, Loowit, Margaret, Coweeman and Toutle game units.
The darted elk go to sleep in a few minutes, Holman said. A team of biologists and veterinarians took blood samples and pulled a tooth to determine age, and tested for pregnancy and lactation.
Each of the elk was fitted with a radio collar and GPS transmitter so they can be tracked over the four years of battery life. If the elk doesn't move for 12 hours, a signal is transmitted and biologists go find the carcass and examine it.
Biologists want to monitor how many elk with hoof rot die, whether affected cows give birth and how elk with hoof rot move in relationship to non-afflicted animals.
Reports of lame elk or elk with overgrown or missing hooves in the Cowlitz River basin began in the mid-1990s and have spread throughout Southwest Washington.
Another research effort concerning hoof disease started in February, when state staff working from helicopters tranquilized 78 cow elk with darts.
About three-fourths of the elk appeared to have hoof disease in the project area: the Winston, Loowit, Margaret, Coweeman and Toutle game units.
The darted elk go to sleep in a few minutes, Holman said. A team of biologists and veterinarians took blood samples and pulled a tooth to determine age, and tested for pregnancy and lactation.
Each of the elk was fitted with a radio collar and GPS transmitter so they can be tracked over the four years of battery life. If the elk doesn’t move for 12 hours, a signal is transmitted and biologists go find the carcass and examine it.
Biologists want to monitor how many elk with hoof rot die, whether affected cows give birth and how elk with hoof rot move in relationship to non-afflicted animals.
State researchers believe that hoof disease is caused by the treponeme bacteria, which has been linked to hoof disease in cows and sheep.
Since March, two-person teams of volunteers and department employees have been fanning out throughout Southwest Washington. By the time the surveys are completed in May, about 200 routes will be driven, from Skamania to Mason counties.
The area is too big to be covered only by state employees and the agency welcomed giving the elk-loving public a chance to help. The approximately 180 volunteers are reimbursed for mileage.
The biologists hope to get a more accurate assessment of what percentage of elk suffer from hoof disease. During a trial run last summer, 13 percent of the elk were limping, though the results of this much larger study could be significantly different.
Biologists also want to learn how many elk in remote, higher-elevation areas have hoof disease, though the condition is most prevalent in agricultural lowlands.
“It will give us more understanding of the outer edges” of where hoof disease has been spotted, George said.
“If you just keep going to places where elk are easy to observe, you’re not really learning,” Holman said.
The survey isn’t an attempt to estimate the total number of elk, which involves a complex method in which some elk are fitted with radio collars and counted by biologists in helicopters.
The department tested a couple of methods for the hoof rot survey before deciding on the plan in use. Volunteers are given a detailed map and asked to start at a central location shown with a colored dot.
“The idea is to drive around on these roads and try to get 50 miles,” George said.
Volunteers don’t have to follow any particular route.
“There’s no good way to drive every road — it might have a tree over it,” Holman said.
Department employees, who have two-way radios that work where cell phones don’t, drive the more remote routes themselves.
In mid-April, Holman, George and a reporter headed up Gifford Pinchot Road No. 54 from Chelatchie, then headed north on Road No. 5701 toward Siouxon Creek, where the eight elk were spotted near a trail that’s popular with hikers and mountain bikers.
Back on Road No. 54, Holman pulled over next to a recent clearcut and surveyed the landscape with binoculars.
Several hundred yards below, one bull and four cow elk ambled through the brush. The biologists studied them intently. All appeared to be walking regularly and none was holding up a foot, which is an indication of hoof rot.
Holman drove up several roads before running into snow around 3,000 feet elevation during a cold snap.
But several inches of white stuff on Road No. 4205 didn’t stop him from driving slowly through the winter wonderland landscape and down to the East Fork of the Lewis River. No elk were spotted in the snowy areas, but the day’s total of 13 was better than some days.
March and April are the best times for the survey, Holman said.
“This time of year, they’re hungry. They tend to be out in the open and easier to see.”
It’s a time-intensive project with all those volunteers to organize.
“It’s a pretty great effort and we’re going to get some good information out of it,” George said. A statistician will analyze the data and try to figure out the geographic distribution of hoof rot.
This year’s program was so popular that more people volunteered than the department needed. Those turned away will get another chance next year, when the agency plans a similar survey.
“It will be adjusted from year to year,” George said, possibly with fewer volunteers or more area surveyed.
